‘Castle,’ Season 4, Episode 7, ‘Cops and Robbers’: TV Recap

Tonight on primetime: Dr. Huxtable and Dr. Quinn. No it isn’t a Cosby Show-Medicine Woman mash-up. Those are the code names for the dressed-like-doctor bad guys on tonight’s “Castle.”

Castle and his mother are at a bank together because she’s trying to get a loan to fix-up her acting school. She has bad credit history so it is a challenge, but she refuses to let Castle co-sign for her.

Bored listening to his mother talk through the options for the loan, Castle calls Beckett hoping to get sent to something more interesting, like a murder scene.

“Tell me you need me,” Castle says into the phone, which makes Beckett pause briefly before she realizes he is looking for crime.

While they’re talking though, something more interesting takes place. He tells Beckett that the bank he is in is about to be robbed.

While he has the phone line open, he gives Beckett a play-by-play; that is until he has a gun held to the back of his head. Beckett, who already has patrol cars on the way, ends up on the phone with the gunman, but she can’t convince him to walk away. Still when Beckett shows up on the scene, the S.W.A.T. team leader is not happy that the bad guys will only talk to Beckett.

“I will only talk to the lady cop, the one with the bedroom voice.”

This is a problem because Beckett has no hostage negotiation training. Still, she has no choice but to jump in and try to keep the robber calm and on the line.

Once she’s on with him again, the robber says he knows about the whole build-rapport-with-the-hostage thing and he won’t fall for it. He tells Beckett he’ll start killing hostages if she doesn’t tell him the truth and help him. He also says his first hostage to go down with be “your boyfriend” Castle.

They realize this gang is experienced and this isn’t their first bank robbery.

Inside, the hostages are frantic. One blames Castle for calling the cops, but the teller Simone, who is pregnant, says they set the alarm once they pulled the money from the bottom of the drawer.

Castle tries to calm the hostages, who are sitting in a group on the floor, by explaining that he works with the police and that his partner will get them out. He’s also trying to figure out what’s happening during the robbery. The robbers aren’t going for the vault full of cash. Instead, they keep taking trips into the safety deposit box room. He grills the bank manager Mr. Davenport, trying to understand what’s is going on.

Then he takes action to gather information, despite his mother urging him otherwise. He has an idea and stands up.

“I saw this work on ‘Die Hard,’” says Castle as he heads to the restroom with one robber.

When he returns he confirms that a) bank bathrooms aren’t nice and b) something is going on out of the ordinary. One robber is pulling photos and letters from a safe deposit box. Castle concludes the alarm was set on purpose to buy time and he is conferring with Davenport about which box they started with when they arrived. It was box 120 – figure out whose box, figure out what they’re really after.

On the phone, the robbers demand a bus in exchange for Simone. Meanwhile, Castle uses his mother’s bracelet to send Morse code signaling SDB 120, which Beckett de-codes in 3.5 seconds. They discover that the box is owned by a couple named Agnes and Gideon Fields, who visit their safety deposit box monthly. Esposito and Ryan go to their apartment, kick the door down and find a long dead body of Agnes. Gideon died some time ago. Someone else has been accessing the box because whoever killed her stole the key from her neck. There is also a professional bug in Agnes’ apartment.

The guy who was unhappy with Castle returns from the bathroom. He thinks he saw explosives in the bag. Castle and his mother try to calm him down because he is freaking out. Sal is his name, and Castle tells him to think only about his son, whose name is Connor. It’s at this point that Castle’s mother realizes these guys are going to take something, then blow up the safety deposit box room.

Sal has a seizure and is getting sent out on a stretcher. Instead of sending in a paramedic to retrieve him Beckett goes in reassuring disguise. Castle get’s a note to her that says C-4. While talking to the patient, Beckett subtly puts a reassuring hand on Castle’s hand.

Beckett has to not only calm the hostage taker, but also Castle’s daughter, who arrives distraught when she learns her father and grandmother are locked inside the bank. She calls her boyfriend looking for support, but can’t reach him. When he does call back, he doesn’t give her any time to talk. He hangs up.

Beckett takes a call from the robber again and this time things get crazy. He says he wants the bus right now, but the bus is 20 minutes away. He fires a warning shot, then puts a gun to Castle’s neck and says he’s going to pull the trigger in one minute. Beckett throws the calm-build-rapport act out the window and says, “listen to me jackass…if you pull that trigger, I will personally walk through that door and put a bullet in your skull.” He says, “Okay Kate, you got 20 more minutes.”

“That’s one way to negotiate,” says the S.W.A.T. leader.

Castle spills his theory to the guy who just hung up with Beckett. Castle knows there will be no bus escape and that nobody is getting out. And then everyone is cuffed. Beckett realizes something bad is about to happen and that this is not playing out as planned.

Inside the bank, Castle grasps at one last moment of humor when he realizes the situation has turned dire. “Mother, I find I’m no longer satisfied with the customer service at this establishment, I think we should take our business elsewhere.” They share “I love yous” and brace for what is about to happen.

And then, the bank blows up. Beckett, in slow motion, walks out of the control center truck.

Beckett runs in to a pile of debris screaming, “Castle” and is relieved to find all of the hostages locked in a caged vault. With watery eyes, she cuts his cuffs, puts her hand on his lapel and we in the TV land wait for the moment we’ve, well all been waiting for. And just then, Castle’s mother interrupts and asks for her cuffs to be cut to. Castle looks near tears for having the moment interrupted.

At first glance, it appears the robbers blew themselves up, but once Beckett is outside talking to Ryan and Esposito they figure out that Sal, who had early been removed in an ambulance, was dead Agnes’s relative and the he likely orchestrated this entire bank take-down. He rigged the bomb to blow early and kill his team, which he’d hired.

Turns out Sal is really Ron, once married to Agnes’s daughter. They do in fact have a son named Connor, but Ron hasn’t seen him in years. He was beating his wife so she faked her and her son’s death to escape the violence. To communicate with her mother Agnes, she had letters and photos put in the safety deposit box, which they both accessed to communicate. Ron wanted the letters to track his wife. Castle and team realize he will probably kill her and kidnap the son once he gets to them.

To execute the letter drops, there had to be a middleman. Finding him might help find Tanya and Connor. They figure it is a priest and he confirms her address, but it is 4 hours away. Ron gets there, hits Tanya, grabs the son and tells her she’ll never see him again, but when he leaves local police who have been tipped off by Beckett and team greets him. Castle and Beckett are relieved. Beckett offers to buy him a drink, but he brings her home to his family instead. His mother’s made a huge meal to celebrate life. Castle overhears his daughter dump her boyfriend.

Beckett and Castle debate who has saved whose life more often. They review the incidents over dinner and wine.